…which means it's pouring inside, figuratively speaking.

Just got a visit from our landlord. His first reason for knocking on our door was to mumble about new recycling cans outside the house, because he got slapped with a couple of fines because the downstairs tenants and/or his nephew who lives in the basement don't know how to properly separate paper from plastic/glass/metal.

The Landlord tried to make me feel guilty about not having paid one of the fines, and implied that I might be asked to pay the next one — despite the fact, as I pointed out to him, that Kara and I separate our recycling properly inside the apartment and bring it downstairs already bagged and ready for pickup.

Then he starts moaning about rising costs for heating oil, property taxes, repairs he had to make, etc., and I know what's coming about two minutes before he says it: He wants to raise our rent. At a time when we're already hemorrhaging a few hundred dollars a month, this is the last thing I want to hear.

So now Kara and I have some fun choices to make: Give up all of the little things we enjoy (cable TV, wine, fresh food); start selling possessions on Craigslist; or I give up being a full-time writer and start applying for one of those impossible-to-get-right-now jobs, and let my editors know that I once more have to limit myself to three books per year, and then let go of other freelance pursuits.

Well, I guess it was nice while it lasted. Some restaurant must need a short-order cook somewhere in this neighborhood…